Damascus Spring News Today

Over the past four years, Assad has razed Syria to the ground. According to Lebanese intellectual Elias Khoury, Assad's regime has reached the end of the line, and the region finds itself in a situation similar to that at the end of the Ottoman Empire

Over the past four years, Assad has razed Syria to the ground. According to Lebanese intellectual Elias Khoury, Assad's regime has reached the end of the line, and the region finds itself in a situation similar to that at the end of the Ottoman Empire

Negotiations on the future of Syria are a far cry from the bitter reality: the Syria we all knew no longer exists after eight years of war, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions and the destruction of most of its cities. Writer and political analyst Faraj Alasha offers his analysis for Qantara

I first went to Syria at the end of March 1982. Leaving aside the old city (whose beauty, centered on the great Umayyad Mosque, endures), Damascus was a grim place. Huge and menacing posters of Hafez Assad and his brother, Rifaat, adorned most buildings. There were beggars and child hawkers on the streets. The atmosphere was fearful: It was only weeks after the destruction of

Syrian lawyer Joumana Seif is the 2023 Anne Klein Women's Laureate. She strives for the political participation of women and the recognition of gender-based violence as a crime against humanity as well as its punishment. Kristin Helberg describes her journey from Damascus to Berlin.

Negotiations on the future of Syria are a far cry from the bitter reality: the Syria we all knew no longer exists after eight years of war, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions and the destruction of most of its cities. Writer and political analyst Faraj Alasha offers his analysis for Qantara

Nick Redmayne returns to Syria to find a country crushed by war but unwilling, or unable to talk openly about it

Though Damascene born and bred, al-Azm is a true cosmopolitan - with no nostalgia for his mother′s baking, no tears shed over the good old days, and no longing for the fresh scent of jasmine so reminiscent of Damascus. He has always preferred personal freedom with all its associated risks to the comfort of a familiar environment. By Yassin al-Haj Saleh

The past decade has seen Syrian alternative media and journalists become the main source of information for what is happening in their country. They live-streamed their pain, their struggles and their experiences of the countless crimes committed against them to the world. And yet, more powerful forces have made this media landscape falter in recent years.

Reviews Syria’s Labor Communist Party, a rich political history The Story of the Labor Communist Party of Syria (1976-1992): A Chapter of the History of the Left in Syria (al-Maraya, 2020) Thursday 3 June 2021, by Joseph Daher Rateb Shabo, a Syrian leftist political activist, was jailed for 16 years in the 1980s and 1990s—including three years in the government’s notorious Tadmur Military Prison—for his membership in the opposition Labor Communist Party [1]. His recent book, The Story...